Happy Birthday, Amaani Girl!

The past year since our sweet Amaani came into our life has flown by; yet somehow it's difficult to imagine a time without her.

 In the past year; she's gone from the teeniest; tiniest babies I've ever seen, to a little lady with a sense of humor and personality.

She's beautiful and smart, funny and cute. I can sometimes imagine her as a teenager-- sweet and then 5 minutes later with a heavy dose of attitude.

I'm so glad that this little monkey has come into our life. It's been a joy to celebrate all of her accomplishments... From rolling over to walking to her very first word (Hi!). 

 She is really a light and a source of joy for everyone in the family-- Even Ishaan can't wait to see her first thing in the morning. 

I love you so much Amaani! With a cherry on top!

Silly Mom Tricks

As I've been telling everyone my whole life; I'm a genius :) I've figured out a way to let Ishaan play with paints *without* making a colossal mess.

I let him use coffee filters instead of paper.

The benefits are:

• They are cheap-- I found them at walmart for about 2 dollars for a pack of 200.
• They are thicker; like a thick paper towel so they soak up the paint instead of running all over the place.
• When he's done, I just use the coffee filters to soak up any paint left on his high chair tray (or even on the floor)
• They are reusable-- I rinse them out and let them dry in a bowl or on the back of our dishrack. The color stays, but they can still be used to paint again. 
• If the paint is pretty enough, a can use them to make coffee filter flowers.

Right now, the 'paint' we are using is just a small bowl of water with a few drops of food coloring. I ask him what color he wants (he always says orange), and mix it up on the spot. I give him 3-4 coffee filters and a brush and let him go to town.  Even if he dumps the entire bowl of water, the filters are absorbant enough to handle the mess. (ask me how I know).

Now if only I can channel my powers into potty training I'd be all set.

Almost Walking

The hotel we were at over the weekend was amazingly gorgeous and completely unsuitable for children which meant that we got very very few pictured of the kids.

We did manage to get this photo of Ishaan trying to charm the daughter of one of Kartik's friends. (She's super smart, so it didn't work.)

And of course this video of Amaani walking. She was really pushing herself, and walked (with the aid of a stroller) out of the reception and up to her hotel room.

I think she's determined to be on her own two feet in the next few weeks.

Dancing Queen!

Or princess...

Let me preface this post by admitting that yes, we are *those* parents. We talk about our kids incessantly. We find ourselves telling each other about the cute things the kids do even though we were both there.

We took a short trip this weekend to attend a reception of a dear friend of Kartik's. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to take many pictures of the kids, since they were more of a handful than usual after the long drive.

I did, however get a precious video of our precious little girl dancing at the reception:

We *re*watched this video after dinner this week, and Ishaan said "aaaaaawwwww"... which about sums it up. :)

Our Merry Little Christmas

I was super excited for this christmas with teh kids. Ishaan is old enough to (sort of) understand what is going on, and Amaani is at least old enough to enjoy the gifts.

Ishaan did have a little trouble understanding that you were actually supposed to *open* the gifts. He walked around with these two little bags for quite some time before looking inside. 

 Amaani picked the biggest box right away though-- go big or go home! She started tearing little quarter sized peices of paper off. By the way, Layla and Maya thanks for these cute little 'jammies!

Eventually, Ishaan figured it out.

The kids loved all the excitement, attention, and of course, the presents!

And, we absolutely loved it too. It was so much fun watching them have so much fun. :) I'm already planning for next year!

Hi!

We put this sweater dress on Amaani, and she looked like such a little lady that I just had to take some pictures.

She looks like she's about to go off to work! Well... minus her hair.

Thankfully her hair is too short to put into pigtails... I'm going to be so sad when we stop using the 'unicorn' look on her. 

Amaani's latest talent is waving 'hi'. Lately she's even been saying the word (sort of)! So her first word is 'hi'.

After work, you just have to get down and dance...

Since a picture just doesnt do justice, Kartik took this video:

And I just had to put this last picture in here... Amaani sticks out her tongue whenever she's concentrating really, really hard....

 

... just like her mom. :)